DAMAGE AND INJURY
Damage and injuries can take place to a character by a variety of means. Each of these means may cause a different kind of damage to the character, such as Sharp for lacerations or Puncture for bullet or stab wounds. These types of damage are mainly just so you can keep track of the different injuries your character has sustained and can heal them appropriately. In this way, the Hero At Heart system tries to have a real, cinematic injury system. In order to see the detailed rules for injury, you can follow the links at the bottom of the page, but this section will give simplified rules for quick and easy use. Remember, the rules are only here as a supplement to the game. In the end, the GM is responsible for deciding how everything works. Types of Injury Each type of injury listed in the links below are really only for keeping track of the injury that has been done to a character. The GM may even come up with new ones to match any unique injuries that might be done (for example, he might say "You've just received Fair Acid damage to your left arm"). Damage types stack on each part of the body, so if the character gets one rank of Sharp damage to his arm, he's considered to have Poor Sharp damage there, but if he gains two more ranks of Sharp damage there, he now has Good Sharp damage to that arm. Injury in Combat Calculating injury done in combat is based on the base damage of a weapon. For this example, we'll say a weapon does Poor Sharp damage. The success rating of the attack is applied to the damage, so if the attacker using this weapon rolled a Poor, it would reduce this by one rank and do no damage at all, but if the roll was Good, one rank is added, making the damage Fair. Armor Armor acts as a penalty to damage. Unlike the normal scale of successes, armor reduces damage by one rank per rank of the armor. Thus, Good armor reduces the damage by three ranks. Certain armor only defends against certain damage. Injury Penalties The GM may decide to impose penalties to actions using an injured body part, reducing the success of any action using that body part by the number of ranks of damage done to it. For example, if an arm has Fair damage done to, if that character tries to attack using that arm, they receive a -2 penalty to the attack. Fatigue Fatigue is an optional damage type the GM may apply to the characters in his game in order to have a more traditional, "Hit Point" like system in addition to injury. For every rank of damage done before armor penalties (ie. Good damage is done, the opponent has Poor armor, so they take two ranks of injury instead of three, but they would take the full three ranks of Fatigue), they lose that many points of their Fatigue. If a character reaches zero Fortitude, they are knocked unconscious, and if they then lose more Fortitude equal to ten percent of their total Fortitude, they die. Healing is based on several factors including the skill of the healer and the amount of time that the character rests. Detailed Damage and Injury Rules *Physical Damage *Armor and Protection *Healing *Damage-Related Penalties *Blunt Damage *Sharp Damage *Puncture Damage *Mauling Damage *Crushing Damage *Suffocation Damage *Fire Damage *Cold Damage *Electrical Damage *Falling Damage *Exhaustion *Poison Damage *Disease, Sickness, Drugs, and Alcohol *Vision and Hearing Damage *Unexpected Damage Category:Core Rules Category:Combat Rules